The Long Road Home
by Asidian
Summary: Between resets, the Winter Soldier recalls enough of himself to realize he doesn't want to return to his handlers. As he struggles to find his way back to a New York he barely remembers, Hydra takes steps to recover their asset. Brainwashing. Psychological trauma. Past torture. Steve x Bucky
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: After watching Captain America: Winter Soldier, I devoured the arc in the comics.

And what struck me more than all the rest was one tiny detail in Bucky's dossier: that one time, in 1973, when he didn't come back after his mission. That one time when he remembered enough to try to go home.

So here. Here are my feels, trying to sort themselves out in fic form. This will likely end up three or four chapters.

* * *

The Long Road Home – Chapter 1

* * *

The target's blood is a flaky brown crust on the fingers of the Soldier's metal hand, but along his ribs, beneath the stealth gear that encloses him like a second skin, his own blood is still wet.

It is sticky and warm, the heat like –

(– a blazing disc, hanging in the too-bright blue above a barely-remembered skyline.)

– the oppressive thrum of the boiler in the hotel basement, where he has spent the better part of two days awaiting the arrival of his target.

There is pain along with the wet; it comes in time with the rhythmic thud in his chest, and sometimes the world swims as he takes a step, becoming darker at the edges. The Soldier gives it little significance. He is certain that it will not interfere with his return to the designated extraction point.

He has cleared the hotel gates already, made an unmarked return to streets where blunt, blocky cars stand beneath a dark sky hidden by the glare of lights and the severe lines of a city at night.

He has turned the corner and is away, already past the highest likelihood that the air will be filled with whirring bullets, though of course the Soldier expects them anyway.

He always expects them, with a tense wariness that never leaves him.

As the Soldier nears the extraction point, the streets become more crowded. The strange, squat cars are more frequent here, and doors with flashing signs above them open, spilling laughing faces into the night. The Soldier examines these new arrivals for signs of threat – too-watchful eyes or the tell-tale flick of fingers toward a concealed weapon – but they are complacent, unaware.

A couple leans together, staggers into a wall, laughing at something the man has said. Their words are a warm drawl, thick with the wrong accent, faces flushed and eyes bright. "I can dig it," says the woman, and the Soldier does not know what she means.

Her hair is wide and loose, the pants she wears long and slender as a gun except for the flares at her ankles. The man puts one arm around her and pulls her in close –

(– to guide her into a spin, their feet light and quick on the dance floor, her skirt lifting as she twirls. And there in the crowd, hands moving in time with the music, together and apart and together again, is a smiling man that he thinks he knows.)

– right there in the street to kiss her.

The Soldier closes his eyes.

He presses the fingers of his flesh hand on top of them, so hard that dark spots flicker behind his eyelids. Someone on the crowded street pushes past him, making the pain in his ribs surge, and for an instant the Soldier is so disoriented that he does not react. He does not so much as reach for a weapon.

When he opens his eyes again, he finds that he is shaking.

The man and the woman are gone.

The Soldier walks more quickly, now, through streets filled with twangs of music that spill out from open doorways like blood seeping from a wound. The air teems with scents he does not know – a sharp, astringent smell, and once, as he passes by a building fronted by sheets of clear glass and filled with low tables, something that makes him swallow against the sudden flood of moisture in his mouth.

The Soldier ducks his head and presses onward.

He is precisely one block from his extraction point when he sees the blue box sitting on the corner, its front open to reveal sharp-edged black newsprint trapped inside.

"Former POWs Charge Torture By North Vietnam," the headline screams, and the photo beneath shows –

(– a cluster of men, haggard and thin, some barely on their feet. The tan jackets they wear are torn and caked with filth, the buttons open in the fronts. The man from the dance floor is there again, not in tan but blue, and he is surrounded by a rising call of voices.)

– hard-faced men in helmets and uniforms of a deep, rich green, set against a background of tree trunks and creeping tendrils.

Above the photograph, the paper proclaims itself the New York Times.

The date is March 12, 1973.

The nausea comes so suddenly that the Soldier almost doesn't have time to lean away from the sidewalk. He cannot remember ever experiencing this dry, heaving twist in his stomach, but his body must recall what to do, because he puts his hands on his knees to brace himself as his throat convulses, spraying bitter bile and the water he gulped down during the wait in the boiler room.

His eyes sting. His side, hot and damp, roars in protest.

After three slow breaths, he discovers that he has not stopped shaking.

"Hey, man," says a voice, a vague intrusion somewhere to his right. "Watch it."

The Soldier is aware that people are turning to give him space as they pass. He is aware that his mission required him to attract no attention. He is aware that he is failing in this.

He knows, too, that he is keeping his handlers waiting. They will be precisely where his briefing instructed him to expect them, ready to return him to the room where he awoke, to wires and water and ice.

His stomach squeezes itself again, and the Soldier makes a hoarse, sharp barking noise as he retches, but there is nothing left to come up.

He counts the beats in his chest until they slow again, but when he thinks of ice, his mind skitters sideways like a target attempting to evade elimination.

His extraction point is a block away. In five minutes, he can be there.

But when he begins to move at last, he finds that his footsteps lead him in the wrong direction.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes: Continuing to work through my feels.

I also have an idea where I'm going with this fic, which is nice. May end up an extra chapter or so longer than initially intended, because that is a thing that always happens to me, apparently.

* * *

The Long Road Home – Chapter 2

* * *

The Soldier does not push his way through the rotating metal device – not at first.

He watches as others go before him, small slips of paper clasped between their fingers. The papers come from a window, given in exchange for different, green paper.

The Soldier knows this because he has observed the process half a dozen times already. He has several pieces of green paper for himself, marked with numbers, taken from a well-groomed man who paid too little attention to his surroundings.

People come and go here. People walk too closely together. The man never knew the folding strip of leather with the paper inside it was gone, and now it is tucked into the Soldier's pocket, an unfamiliar weight when he moves.

The Soldier knows what he must do.

"Where ya'll goin?" asks the woman at the window, when the Soldier approaches.

He does not expect a question. He is prepared with his paper, but still he does not have everything he needs. The Soldier's gaze falls to the counter, seeking an answer. There, on the wall, is a rack where small booklets are folded. Pictures appear on the covers, with smiling faces and bright, appealing scenes.

The Soldier looks from one to the next, calculating, meaning to choose one at random.

It is the green woman that stops him. She –

(– stands high above them, her robes trailing up and up into the sky. At the top, her crown is just visible, and her torch, and before them her pedestal is larger than life. The boy that stands beside him, perhaps seven, is stick-thin, hair neatly parted. He grins hugely, and it displays the gap of a missing tooth.)

– catches his eye. She catches his breath, too, and his throat is suddenly tight with recognition.

"There," he manages, and his voice is hoarse and low. He reaches for the little booklet, for the picture of this woman that he knows, for the words along the top, which read "New York."

"I can get you as far as Chicago, hun. That's the end of the line." The woman looks down at a stack of papers that are clipped together. She makes a mark in a neat column. "One private cabin left. You want it?"

The Soldier does not know what a private cabin is. He does not know whether he wants it.

Instead of answering, he unfolds the strip of leather and takes out all of the green paper. He pushes it at her, over the counter, through the window. She laughs. "Big spender, huh?

And she takes the green paper, handing him back another, smaller, thicker paper. She gives him a different green paper, too. The number on it is smaller. "Go on through, now. You're due to leave in about five minutes."

The Soldier goes on through.

As he walks, he watches closely for signs of his handlers, but there are none.

He thinks that perhaps this is because they do not know what to look for.

His close-fitting stealth gear lies abandoned in a container for trash along the narrow street where he waited out the night. His new clothing, procured from a line hanging near a window, makes him look like one of the placid men who walk oblivious through this crowded space, as though nothing could possibly be a threat.

The pants fit him loosely. The brown jacket serves to disguise the bulk of the gun he wears beneath. The shirt is sharp-collared, the pale blue of the light that flashed on and off in the room where he awoke from ice. It disconcerts him.

He does not think he looks much like a Soldier, in clothing like this. He does not think most of his handlers would be able to pick him out from a row of similarly-dressed men.

They do not often look at his face.

Beyond the gateway, through the rotating metal device, people cluster to wait before a ledge. A small girl stands on the tips of her toes, trying to see, and the woman beside her takes hold of her waist and lifts her up for a better view.

In the distance, he can hear –

(– a high, mournful whistle as the train pulls out of the station, smokestack billowing. The boy beside him is no older than nine, wide blue eyes alive with anticipation. He has climbed onto a high brick wall to watch, and in his excitement, he nearly overbalances. Hands reach out to steady him, hands of flesh that are very small, and it takes the Soldier an instant to realize that they are his.)

– the rumble of an approaching train, the rhythmic clack of it on the rails. It is not a sound that the Soldier was aware of knowing.

This train, when it comes, is not like the one that flickered into place behind his eyes. It is sleeker, with no smokestack rising from the front.

The Soldier knows an instant of— something. Of something he can't put in words.

The boy by the brick wall would not have liked this train as much. The smokestack was always his favorite part.

"All aboard!" calls a man near the ledge, and when the people shuffle forward to hand over their papers, the Soldier does, as well. He is pointed down a narrow hallway flanked by chairs, and he follows the directions to a door that opens in a sideways slide.

Inside stand a table and two benches, empty.

The Soldier recalls the words of the woman through the window. He is only fairly certain that he knows what constitutes "private," but he thinks that this must be the cabin she arranged.

When the Soldier enters, he closes the door behind him and sweeps the room for vulnerabilities. The window will allow a sniper easy sight; the door has no locking mechanism; the walls seem thin and ill-equipped to repel an assault, should one come.

He draws the shutters of the window closed. He snaps off a wedge from the back of one of the benches with his metal hand, and he slides it into the space beneath the door, wedging it into place.

Then he settles in to wait – not on the bench, where any gunman will expect him, but crouched on the floor near the base of the table. The position does little to help his side, where the wound has crusted over but still causes pain.

The Soldier thinks that pain is preferable to a new bullet wound, and his fingers slip into his jacket to touch the reassuring metal of his gun.

But there, tucked away as though it holds as much value as a weapon, he discovers a thin fold of paper.

The Soldier takes it out gently, attentive to the fact that his metal fingers may crush it. He does not recall putting the booklet away, does not recall making the decision to keep it, but here it is, regardless. He touches the face of the green woman, the ripples of her robe, the boat that passes by in the water at her feet.

"New York," he breathes.

They are words he does not know, but they are the most beautiful words he can remember hearing.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Notes: The Elgin was a real cinema in Brooklyn. It opened in 1942, the year before Bucky goes off to war.

* * *

The Long Road Home – Chapter 3

* * *

He awakes to a bare lightbulb swinging from a concrete ceiling and the worst pain he's ever known.

It wraps him up until he's choking on it, slices through him in waves that make it hard to focus on anything else. He's aware, vaguely, through his own agony, that there are men in the room with him. They're here and there at the edges of his vision, in long white coats, and he's glad for them, so glad.

He's not sure how he made it through that fall, not sure if he's in one piece; his left arm is a naked sheet of hurt and something shifts inside him every time he takes a breath. But there are doctors, and the table he's on is steel – an operating table? – and that means Steve must've found him, after all.

He made it through the hard part. All he has to do now is get better.

"Doc?" he croaks. Even in the stillness of the room, the word is barely audible.

One of the men in white coats steps into the circle of light cast by the bulb. He thinks he knows this man – knows his neatly-trimmed whiskers and soft, watery eyes – and his stomach clenches up, a reaction that has nothing to do with the pain.

When the man speaks, the reply is in Russian, but he doesn't understand. For some reason, this surprises him.

"Hey," he says. "Am I a mess? Feels like a truck ran me down." Talking is like extracting shards of glass; each word requires its own, distinct struggle to be formed, and when they are out, he lies panting with the effort. He hopes that the doctor will respond – will give him a shot of morphine, or something to put him out. Christ, could he use it.

But the man's facing away from him, at the edge of his vision, and there's no response.

"Doc?" he tries again.

When the doctor turns, he holds a bone saw in his hand. It's a nightmare moment, an instant of pure, distilled blood-to-ice horror. The teeth of the saw are tiny and precise, and they catch the light in a way that highlights them, and he can feel his heart jump in his chest.

For the first time, he wonders if he's going to die.

If he is, he wants to see Steve again before he goes. There're a couple things that still need saying.

"That bad, huh?" He tries to sound casual, tries to play it cool, but the pain creeps in between the words, strips the front away and leaves him raw.

When the doctor doesn't answer, the little knot of fear twists itself in deeper, bottoms out somewhere in his stomach. He lies back and tries to breathe – tells himself that the docs know what they're doing. He knows boys walking around that came through blasts in more or less one piece. If they can make it through a grenade, he's sure as hell not gonna let a fall kill him.

"Doc?" The man comes over and says something else in Russian, real somber. The doc's hand, when it touches his forehead, is nice and cool.

He waits for the needle – for the sting that'll drown everything else so they can start the surgery.

But no needle comes. There's just the bone saw, with its small, even teeth right up against his left arm.

Even that tiny touch is too much. The pain's bigger than he can comprehend, and he's twisting and yelling, jerking away. "Hey!" he shouts. "I'm not _out_ yet!"

It's not until that instant, when his body remains firmly in place despite his thrashing, that he notices the straps holding him to the table. They're thick leather, regularly spaced; when he cranes his neck, he can just make out the one across his chest and the two that pin his right arm.

His left arm, he discovers, is a ruin of wet meat. He can see the white suggestion of bone in the slick, red mass of it.

For an instant, it almost doesn't matter that there's no needle. For an instant, the world blacks out at the edges, and his head is swimming with the shock, and he thinks he's gonna swoon like the dames in the detective films he and Steve used to catch down at the Elgin.

Then the saw's cutting in, and all there is left to do is scream.

The Soldier is still screaming when he wakes – a short, harsh shout followed by a bang, bang, bang to his left.

He registers that he was lying on the floor at the foot of a table, but he does not remain there for long. He already has the gun in his hand and is taking aim before a woman's voice cuts through the panic and the pounding of his heart.

"Sir?" she says, through the door of the train's cabin. "Are you all right in there?"

It takes the Soldier a moment to realize that the words are meant for him. He cannot remember ever having been called "sir" before.

"Sir?" she says again.

The gun is beginning to warm in his palm. With effort, the Soldier puts it away.

He leans down to remove the wood from beneath the door, then slides it open just a crack. On the other side, a round face lined with age is staring back with furrowed brows.

"Lisa," says the label on her right breast pocket, and the tray she holds is laden with cups of water and another liquid, something orange. She is not visibly armed. "Is everything okay?" she asks. Her eyes are fixed on his, and they crinkle at the edges in an expression he does not understand.

"I," the Soldier begins.

But he has no words to tell her. He can't say any of the things that are crowding into him, trying to come out.

I know a man named Steve, he might have said. I know that once my arm was made of meat and bone. I know there was a time when I didn't speak Russian, and that I used to watch detective films at the Elgin, and that the dames always swooned at the sight of a gun.

"I fell asleep," he says at last, instead.

The edges of the woman's eyes crinkle more. "Sounds like it was an awful dream," she says, and her voice is soft in a way the Soldier has never heard before. She picks up one of the cups of orange liquid and holds it out to him. When he makes no move to take it, she says, "On the house," and presses it into his hand.

"Just one more hour till Chicago," she tells him, but he is staring at the cup, at the way his fingers close around –

(– the cracked brown mug holding the last of the orange juice. He plonks it down on a scuffed table in front of a young man with sleep-mussed hair. He's wearing pajamas and a bathrobe, this man, despite the fact that the lazy light of late afternoon slants in through the kitchen's bare windows. His nose is red, and his face is flushed with fever. A voice that is the Soldier's but not quite says, "I'll pick up some more when I get paid." The man's jaw gets a stubborn set to it, and the voice says, "Don't gimme that look, Stevie, the doc says you need to eat better. C'mon, it's just juice. I'll live without it for a couple of days.")

– the thin plastic. When his mind rearranges itself, when he's seeing what's before him instead of a run-down kitchen, she has already gone.

The Soldier takes the cup with him back into the cabin. He slides the door closed and jams the wedge of wood beneath it again.

Then he sits on the floor at the foot of the bench, where he fell asleep, and he considers the orange juice. He sits there for a long time, listening to the rhythmic clack of the wheels on the tracks, running over and over the images that came in his sleep, and those that came while he was awake.

He thinks of a man named Steve. He thinks, too, of that other person – a person with two flesh hands, who fought over who was going to finish the orange juice.

At long last, the Soldier takes a sip from the cup, and he is surprised when the taste spreads across his tongue, as bright as the light in that long-ago kitchen.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Notes: Sorry this one took so long. I was out of town this weekend. Thank you so, so much to the folks who have been kind enough to comment! 3

* * *

The Long Road Home – Chapter 4

* * *

The train station in Chicago has a small window, too.

Behind this one sits a surly man with thick eyebrows and a squint. "Where ya wanna go?" he asks, disinterested, and the Soldier shows him the booklet that says "New York."

"Fifty-six bucks." The man sticks his little finger in his ear absently. He twists it one way and then the other, pulls it out again to examine the yellow glob on the end of it.

The Soldier does not know what bucks are, but he knows what's called for next. He retrieves the folded strip of leather from his jacket pocket. He removes the green paper that will get him onto the train.

But the man gives him nothing in return. "Nice try. Now how bout the rest?"

The Soldier looks at the green paper. He checks the folded strip of leather, to be sure. "That is the rest," he tells the man.

"Get lost, buddy."

The Soldier thinks that it would be difficult to become more lost than he is already, but he leaves the window, all the same.

Standing in the train station, he inspects his remaining paper more closely. This time, he counts the numbers written on it. Fifty-six, the man told him. Perhaps when his number and the number for the train match, he will be able to leave.

And so the Soldier falls in casually behind a woman with elaborate black hair and a neckline draped with silver and white stones. The bag in her hand hangs loosely, and she speaks with the woman beside her, unengaged with the rest of the room.

It is little challenge for his hand to find its way within the bag; stealth is, after all, a part of the Soldier's training. Her folded strip of leather joins the one already in his pocket, and then the Soldier slows, and the woman's pace carries her onward.

He waits until she is gone from view, then opens the folding pouch to discover what lies inside. He counts –

(– the dough one last time, just to be sure, and swears under his breath. The cashier, in his pressed button-up and bow tie, looks at him real close. "There a problem, mac?" There's not much in the paper bag on the counter: just a couple cans of soup, a bushel of potatoes, a tin of beef. But Steve's just about out of medicine, and that's got to come first. "No problem," says the voice that isn't quite the Soldier's. He picks the meat and one of the cans of soup out of the bag, and he sets them aside. "Just changed my mind, is all.")

– the numbers on the green paper that he finds.

When he finishes, his hands are unsteady.

He knows the total, but he goes through the motions again anyway, deliberately. It is strange, to hold the dough the way those flesh hands did.

The numbers add to forty-two, now. It would be easy as snapping a spine to find one more unsuspecting man or woman and complete the requested amount.

But the Soldier thinks, "I'll pick up some more when I get paid." He thinks, "Just changed my mind, is all." Staring down at the dough, not enough to get him on the next train, the Soldier feels an unfamiliar heaviness in his chest.

He wonders if the people who these bucks belonged to had plans for orange juice. He wonders if they will need medicine soon.

He returns to the window, to the man that sits slouched behind it.

"I need to go here," says the Soldier, and he shows the booklet again.

The man takes one more look at him and snorts, shaking his head. "Then I need fifty-six bucks."

"It does not have to be by train," the Soldier tells him.

"Christ," says the man, wonderingly. "The hell's the matter with you? Take the fucking bus, then." He waves one meaty hand at the Soldier. "Now get outta here."

Outside the train station, the Soldier's breath makes small clouds in front of his mouth. The change in temperature is sudden, the wind sharp as the edge of his combat knife. It is not long before he is aware of the metal of his own arm, chill to the touch.

The sensation commands his attention, but it is not a hindrance to the Soldier' progress. He walks east, past cars with flashing lights that scream out an alarm. He discovers that if he hunches forward, like the men and women that pass on either side of him, the wind does not seem so strong.

Before the Soldier has gone a block, his limbs feel heavy. Before he has gone two, his legs tremble. When he walks, the still-healing crust of the wound along his ribs tugs, just slightly, against the fabric of his shirt. His stomach shifts and gurgles, a solid ache. By the third block, the world spins with him when he turns his head. It is like nothing he recalls experiencing before.

But this sensation does not hinder the Soldier's progress, either. He ignores it.

On the forth block, he passes colored metal boxes on the corner. March 15, 1973, say the papers inside them. "Dean Cover-up Confirmed."

The Soldier looks at them as he moves past, but he does not slow. A man with a long face, neat hair and glasses stares solemnly out at him. The picture causes no images to flash behind his eyes.

Behind him, the Soldier can hear the wail of an alarm –

(– shrill and piercing. The fire is spreading, the room filling with smoke, but the target lying on the bed has not burned, yet. Her eyes bulge, sightless; he can make out the marks of his metal fingers, livid and red on her throat. "It must be an accident," says his handler's voice, in the Soldier's memory. And so the Soldier retrieves a plush lump of fabric from the bed with metal fingers. He presses it against the wall, where the flames are spreading, and watches as the fire licks at it. When it is ablaze, he places it on the bed again. The fire races out like a bullet from the barrel of a gun, overwhelms the cloth and the target. Within moments, her hair has caught, and the flesh around those staring eyes blackens and begins to bubble. Satisfied that there will not be enough left of her to prove his involvement, the Soldier turns to go.)

– and more cars flash by him, boxy and white, with lights that pulse out an even rhythm.

The Soldier's takes in a slow, ragged breath, then lets it out again. He can remember the woman's face, with delicate brows and a mole below her left eye.

The Soldier thinks that the man in the theater, that man with two flesh hands, would have liked a dame like that.

He wonders, for perhaps the first time ever, why his handlers had wanted a person dead. He finds himself thinking that, if they knew how badly his programming had slipped, they would be very displeased, indeed.

Behind him, down the street, there is a commotion. The sirens have not abated, and there are voices raised. The Soldier glances back to see that men in dark blue uniforms have swarmed the street near the train station.

The sight catches something in him. It connects to his last thought and turns over in his mind, and the Soldier's eyes go wide in sudden understanding.

He moves without thinking, takes a hard right into the narrow alleyway that runs perpendicular to the main street. He steps over the man that lies sleeping against the wall, draped in newspaper. When he reaches the chain link fence at the walkway's end, he grips it with his metal hand, vaulting over.

The Soldier is seventeen blocks away before he stops. The sirens are not audible here, and he does not see any men in blue. He is swaying slightly on his feet.

The door beside him displays a sign that reads "Pie Like Your Ma Used to Make." The Soldier pushes it open and steps into a room full of tables and padded red benches. The warmth is sudden and complete, and the smell makes him momentarily dizzy. It is sweet, and strange, and the Soldier thinks that the man with two flesh hands might have known it once, long ago. It is tentatively familiar.

He finds that his mouth is wet. His stomach twists tighter, and he swallows hard, determined to ignore it.

A woman approaches him, shriveled and bent. She does not walk straight, but meanders from side to limping side. The Soldier finds it a wonder that she can stand at all; by the time she reaches him, he has estimated twenty-nine points at which her brittle bones would shatter with only a tap.

"You in for the pie, sonny?" she asks him, in a voice like creaking metal.

The Soldier does not know what pie is. The sign in the front claims that his ma used to make it, but the Soldier does not know what his ma is, either.

"I need to take the fucking bus," he tells her, instead.

She blinks out at him from behind thick, round glasses. Her already-creased face creases more deeply when she frowns. "You better watch that mouth, boy, if you want directions."

The Soldier does not know if he wants directions, but her tone makes the rest an order. He presses his mouth closed, makes a firm line of it. Then he nods, to show that he will comply.

She looks him over, stares hard at his face. "Out the door and to your left. Take a right on Royce, then keep on going till you hit the Steak and Ale." She crooks a stick-like thumb toward the street. "Cut through the lot and the station's on the other side. You won't miss the sign."

The Soldier nods again, and he keeps his mouth closed, as instructed. He turns to go.

"What," says the old woman, "no thank you?"

The Soldier looks back at her, at the wrinkled lines by her mouth, deeper now with disapproval. If one of his handlers had looked at him like that, the Soldier would have known to expect a correction. He does not know what to expect from this woman.

"Thank you?" he asks.

The old woman waves one hand at him dismissively. "Sorry excuse for one," she tells him. "Go on, now, out with you."

The Soldier nods again, carefully. Then he turns from her piercing stare and lets himself back out into the cold.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Notes: This is one of the first scenes that came to me when the idea for this fic first occurred.

It's already gotten a bit longer than planned, but I feel like it probably needs another chapter or two to finish it off the way I intended.

Thanks for everyone sticking with me, and for the kind comments!

* * *

The Long Road Home – Chapter 5

* * *

The seat of the coaster is smooth against his spine, the strap a firm weight against his chest.

Beside him, Steve's eyes are a little wild, hair already mussed from the wind in off the sea. "If I puke, you jerk," Steve tells him, "I'm gonna puke on _you_."

They crest the ridge, and there it is spread out before them.

It's like a kid's drawing come to life – improbably bright. The splashes of teal and yellow from the fortune-teller's tent stand out against the slatted wood walkways. The narrow passage into the House of Mirrors catches the afternoon light and winks up at them, gleaming like a fresh-minted liberty half-dollar. And there's the hot dog stand where they had lunch, each sizzling sausage no wider than a toothpick from this high above.

"Come on, Stevie," he says, and elbows the boy strapped in next to him. "Live a little."

The coaster tips forward and the world becomes rushing wind and whirling color. He's grinning so hard it hurts, and then he's laughing out loud. He's laughing at the wide, blue sky, at the smell of the ocean in the air, at the way Steve falls against him on the turns, warm and solid.

Then they hit the first loop, and they're flying.

The Soldier wakes to the taste of salt on his lips and a still-lingering smile.

He lies still a moment longer, the slow rattle of the bus a steady vibration against his shoulder. His chest aches in a way that has nothing to do with his wounded ribs, now nearly healed. His face feels sticky.

When he lifts a hand to touch it, the Soldier discovers that it is wet.

He sits that way for a long time, watching the world slide past outside the bus' window.

The sky is close and tight, a low white fog narrowing the world to all of twenty visible feet. Lights swim into range, blazing signs that cut through the misty night and then are gone. The Soldier sees no signs of the boxy white cars or their flashing blue and red, and a part of him is reassured, if only slightly.

He becomes aware of the conversation gradually – hushed chatter, for night has fallen. The words are clipped and heated, from the pair of kids that sit directly in front of him.

The girl is a gangly twig of a youth, with unkempt hair and a plastic bandage on the knobbly knee that sticks out into the aisle. The boy is a head taller, with a smattering of acne across his nose.

There is a rustling between them, as of thin plastic, and the girl says, "Cause you don't know. You're just dumb, is all." Her words are muffled, like her mouth is full.

"And you're not biased even a little." The boy's voice is flat and sarcastic. "What have you even got to compare it to?"

There is a soft swallowing noise, and then the girl shoots back at him: "Plenty! More than you."

She turns sideways, toward the old man sprawled out asleep on the seat across the aisle. The Soldier can make out the disappointed moue of her lips. It is there for an instant and then gone, chased away as she twists around completely, facing backward. The stare she fixes on the Soldier is intent.

"Hey, mister," she says. "My brother's dumb. Can you help us out?"

The Soldier considers her earnest –

(– eyes, serious above a frown of concentration. Steve's staring at the paper like it's got all the secrets of life behind it, scribbling furiously with his pencil before rubbing out his progress and making yet another correction. "You flip your wig?" says the voice isn't the Soldier's, and a flesh hand reaches out to take hold of the paper. It is a masterpiece in grey: a boy about Steve's age, lips curved up in a confident smirk, hair slicked back like he's expecting a night out on the town. "It's perfect already. It looks just like me." But Steve's reaching to take it back, batting his hands away. "Quit it," Steve tells him. "It's not done till I say it's done.")

– expression.

"With what?" the Soldier asks.

He thinks, in that instant, that he would be willing to do a great deal for her. He thinks that she deserves it, for reminding him of the way Steve's fingers looked smudged with pencil lead.

"With this." There's a rustle of plastic again, and the girl glances down, at the space between her and her brother. When her hand comes up, she's holding something small and circular between her fingers.

The Soldier leans forward to get a better look. The object is brown and soft. Her fingers dent its surface. As he watches, a fragment breaks off and falls to the floor of the bus, and the girl does not notice.

"What is it?" the Soldier asks.

The boy barks a laugh, harshly triumphant. "See? They're so ugly he can't even tell."

"It's just dark!" the girl snaps back, peevish. Then, to the Soldier: "It's a cookie. I made em for our grandma, but this jerk says I can't cook."

She sticks her hand all the way over the seat back. The cookie hovers perhaps an inch before his nose. When the Soldier reaches to take it, he discovers that it _is_ soft. He sits there with it in his hand, wondering what it's for.

"Go on," she says. "Take a bite. They're good."

She is watching him. The boy is, too. Uncertain, the Soldier lifts it to his mouth and takes a bite, as instructed.

And the girl is right. It _is_ good.

A low, mellow sweetness spreads across his tongue, skirting the border of spice. The Soldier's mouth is wet again, an abrupt flood of moisture; his stomach twists, sudden and sharp.

He swallows convulsively, a reflex action, and nearly chokes. He coughs once, twice, and does not care. He crams the rest of the thing into his mouth, licks the crumbs from his palm.

The kids are still watching, eyes wide with disbelief.

When the Soldier's mouth is clear again, he finds that his lips will not stay in one place; they twitch upward at the corners. He wonders if it looks like the smile worn by the boy in Steve's drawing.

"You flip your wig?" the Soldier asks the girl's brother. "They're perfect."

He remembers the woman in the shop with the sign for pie. He remembers what she asked for, and he turns his smile on the little girl. "Thank you," he says.

And when she gives him another, he thanks her for that one, as well.


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Notes: The fortune teller here isn't especially psychic; she's doing a cold reading. Since Bucky's pretty hard to gauge, expression-wise, she's going on what she assumes — that he's a soldier just back from Vietnam, which is drawing to a close in 1973. Her generalities just so happen to hit a bit too close to home.

* * *

The Long Road Home – Chapter 6

* * *

The ground in New York is covered with a thin layer of slush that's a dingy brown, imprinted with the passage of countless pairs of boots.

It soaks through the Soldier's stolen shoes within ten minutes, leaves his toes stingingly, painfully cold. He can still see his breath every time he exhales, and the metal of his arm is like a slab of ice, steadily leaching the warmth from him.

Now that he has arrived, he does not know what he means to do. He clears the building marked Bus Station, alert for cars with lights or men in blue, but he sees neither.

He has no mission to fulfill, no objective to achieve. No fresh images manifest, telling him what step to take next.

And so the Soldier walks. He tracks the labels on the streets as he passes, filing them away for later reference, in case he needs to return.

He is steadier on his feet, now, since the bus trip. He suspects that this has something to do with the cookies granted him by the girl; after accepting them, some of the dizziness left him, and his stomach quieted, as well.

As he moves forward, one foot in front of the next, he thinks of the pictures in his mind, those brief, vivid flashes that come without warning. He thinks of Steve, with his stubborn jaw and kind eyes. He thinks of a kitchen, and of a darkened room with rows of chairs. He thinks of the tall green statue and the coaster by the sea.

The Soldier has no mission to fulfill, but he thinks he knows what he's looking for, all the same.

* * *

Coney Island looks out on the ocean, and today the water is grey and fretful, topped with bits of frothing white. It reflects the clouds, close and dark, and as the Soldier steps into the streets of his memory, he recalls the way it felt, on that long-ago day, to laugh at the sky.

His steps are even and measured on the slatted wood, and he finds the coaster exactly where the hard-faced man with the long, black coat had said it would be. More than that, he finds it as he remembers it.

The loop twists in a graceful arc into the flat, unwelcoming sky. The Soldier stands staring up at it, and at his side, the left arm is so cold that it burns.

The House of Mirrors is gone, replaced by a shop that promises "Delicious ICE CREAM." The hot dog stand is missing, too. But the fortune teller's tent is still here, vibrant colors leeched away in favor of a dim reminder of what used to be. The sign out front reads: "MADAME VERANA! Fortunes told – destinies UNVEILED. $3" The Soldier circles around to stand at the entryway, peers in to catch a glimpse of gauzy fabric and golden bangles.

An old woman sits at a table draped in purple cloth. Her lips are the red of fresh-spilled blood, and when she looks up, her dark eyes –

(– sparkle with mischief. Her hand is delicate on Steve's palm, fingernails painted the same crimson shade as her lipstick. "You'll be a great man someday," she says, and her touch slips upward, over the wrist, a forward sort of caress. Steve flushes and takes his arm away, and the man who isn't the Soldier chuckles at the way his ears have gone pink. He hands over a dime for both their fortunes, an extravagant gesture, but they've saved up for today. They can afford it, just this once. "Lady," he tells her, "he already is.")

–are dull with boredom.

The Soldier stares.

There are wrinkles now, where there were none before. The woman's put on weight, and she has a scar across one cheek. Her sleek, dark hair is mostly white. But it is undeniably the same woman, and a strange, swimming sensation accompanies the notion. He feels light-headed as he steps into the tent.

He does not care that her smile is flat and tired. It's worn on the first face he remembers from _before_.

"Greetings, child." The woman at the table, bent now with age, leans forward. She angles her head just so, as though listening to a distant sound. "I am Madame Verana. Have you come for your future?"

The Soldier has six bucks in his pocket. He remembers enough about how dough works to know that he'll have to give up three, if he says yes.

He says yes, anyway.

Madame Verana sits him down on a hard, high chair of light wood. She reaches across the table to take his left hand – startles to discover that it is not real – and then takes his right, instead.

"The war?" she asks him. Her eyes had been flat and unengaged, but that look is gone now; in its place is something softer.

The Soldier remembers a table, and a man in a white coat, and a bone saw. Most of the arm was already gone by then.

He does not reply.

"My Tommy lost a leg over there," she tells him. "A lot of other good men left pieces behind, too."

Still the Soldier says nothing.

She touches his palm, the flesh one, and the sensation is light and foreign as it creeps up his arm. Touch like this is strange. It is a brush of skin against skin, with no pain at all. He –

(– only just stops the gasp that catches in his throat. He never thought much about his wrist one way or the other, but Steve's fingers are splayed there now, thoughtless and warm. And suddenly? Suddenly, it's the most important part of his body. It's dynamite, the way something so simple can race through him like a summer storm, the ones that turn the sky soot-dark with clouds and spotlight-bright with lightning. He can think of about twenty different reasons why he shouldn't kiss his best friend, twenty reasons easy, without having to try too hard. But when he turns his head just a little, angles it down like that, he can see the smile at the corner of Steve's lips, and he knows not one of those reasons is gonna be enough.)

–doesn't quite know what to make of it.

It's almost too much, the gentle hands on him and the images that flash behind his eyes. The recollection is so warm that it hurts.

But Madame Verana carries on, unaware; she traces the lines on his palm, confident and searching. Her eyes flicker from his face to his hand and back again.

The Soldier wonders what she sees there.

"You haven't been back for long," she tells him. Her fingertips map the ridges and crevices, and they do not hesitate. "It's been harder than you expected." She taps at a small outcropping of lines, inclines her head to peer at them more closely. "Things have changed. You've changed, too."

At length, the Soldier nods. His gaze falls to where their hands rest against the purple tablecloth, and he notices for the first time that gold threads pick out an intricate pattern. It is easier to look at the pattern. That way, he doesn't have to see how her eyes crinkle at the corners in an expression he does not know.

"You saw things that you would rather not have seen," says Madame Verana.

The Soldier does not respond. He clenches his jaw, and he stares at the threads in the tablecloth, and he thinks of a woman's face licked by fire. He thinks of that other man, with two flesh hands, who might have liked a dame like that.

The fortune teller indicates a deep crease in the center of his palm, rubs at it with the ball of one thumb. "And now," she says, "you're looking for something. Now that you've returned, there's something you need to find."

The Soldier glances up at that – at her dark eyes and greying hair. When she frowns in concentration, it makes her look much older.

"The good news," Madame Verana tells him, "is that you'll find what you're looking for." The quirk of her lips is complicated – wan and apologetic. "But it will be a long, hard road to get there."

She keeps him for ten minutes longer, voice low and confidential, the weight of her fingers disconcertingly pleasant. When she finishes, the Soldier takes three crumpled bucks from his stolen leather holder and holds them out to her across the table.

The fortune teller from that bright Coney Island day a lifetime ago shakes her head, and she gives them back.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Notes: The Elgin started its life as a regular theater, in 1942. By the 70s, it was showing porn.

...I don't even know what happened in this chapter. You're welcome?

* * *

The Long Road Home – Chapter 7

* * *

The Soldier finds the Elgin on the corner of 19th Street and Eighth Avenue. It takes him four hours to walk there.

On the way, he notes the people out in the steel-grey afternoon, heads down and shoulders hunched in against the frigid air. They wear gloves on their hands and lengths of cloth around their necks, and the Soldier has neither. The hair on his arm stands on end.

He watches a small child in a purple coat go by with her plump hand holding tight to the hand of a round, older woman. He observes a gangly teenager with a scruffy chin and round glasses waving a sign aloft. It reads "It's about time we gave peace a chance." He notes a bearded man, bent, that sits tucked into a crook between buildings. The man holds out a cup as the Soldier goes by. "Spare some change?" he asks, and the Soldier peers inside the cup to discover that it is full of dough.

The man has more than he does.

The Soldier is all the way to East Broadway before he realizes what he's been looking for.

It's not until a broad-shouldered man in a ratty black trench comes near that he catches himself checking for blue eyes and neat blonde hair. Then he knows.

The knowledge comes with a sharp pang, unexpected and sudden. It nestles in his chest, somehow warm and painful both at once.

He can imagine the way Steve will turn to him, the way it will take recognition a moment to come. He can imagine Steve calling him by – whatever name he once had. He can imagine what it will be like, almost, to find someone who knows he _has_ a name.

The Soldier's eyes have started to sting. He closes them for a moment, to keep the feeling contained, and then he presses on.

By the time he arrives at the Elgin, evening has come; the air is colder still, and below thick banks of cloud, small flecks of white drift with the wind.

The Soldier stands on the curb just looking at the place – at the man who hands out paper to those who give him dough, at the grungy front with the big, brightly-lit letters. He thinks of detective films he can't remember, and of a dark room filled with chairs that he can, just barely.

The white specks come more frequently now, not just two or three at a time but dozens. One slips into the open side of his collar, and the sudden shock of cold –

(– claws its way into him like a rabid dog. He gasps with the pain of it, at the awful burn of the ice. And there they are on the other side of the glass, so calm and dispassionate, taking notes. He tries to yank himself free, but the straps that hold him are metal, and he can't control that goddamned arm yet. It sits there twitching, and every time he tries to get it to do more, it hurts like hell. He wonders if they've shut it off somehow, if they've got a kill switch so he can't break out and beat their smug faces in. "Smart move," he wants to say, "Cause I _would_," but already his teeth are clattering, coming together so violently that he bites the inside of his cheek and tastes blood.)

– makes him shudder against the little streak of wet.

He feels the phantom traces of pain and the remembered animosity, bitter and sharp at the back of his mouth. It is a foreign notion, that the man with two flesh hands knew such resentment. The words_ how dare they _echo in his mind, as though someone has whispered them in his ear.

He stares down at his metal fingers, flexes them to watch as they curl in and out.

He thinks he likes the feeling of that remembered anger. It is novel to him, this idea that he can be incensed on his own behalf. It feels, for an instant, as though an unexpected ally has taken his part, although that ally is only the man he used to be.

One of the white flakes touches his cheek. Another lands on his sleeve. The wind bites through his jacket, and the Soldier finds that he has begun to shiver. Thinking back, to a cold so deep it sears his bones, the evening chill seems infinitely bearable.

It is not until the flakes of white are dusting his shoulders that the Soldier moves at last, crossing the street to step into the shelter of the Elgin's overhang.

* * *

The Soldier does not know what he expects, but it is not this.

The woman on the screen above the stage has no clothes on, and her skin stretches on for yards, creamy and smooth. There is a tear in the cloth where the images display, and it appears in every scene. Now it's on the inside of her thigh, now on the hollow of her cheeks as she takes a length of rigid flesh –

(– between his lips. Steve's eyes are closed, and by God, he's known girls with lashes not half so long, with mouths not half so pretty. He's tumbled most of the dames that run in McSorley's down on East 7th Street, but he's never felt something like this. He's never fought to catch his breath, never hesitated before reaching, so careful, to run his fingers through hair still damp from the shower. "Stevie," he breathes, and his voice is strange, half gone. He's gonna catch hell, when Steve's mouth's not too busy to make wise cracks. He's supposed to be the experienced one here, ain't he? But the point is, he's never experienced something like _this_.)

– into a mouth that's pink and glossy.

Above the long, straight stretch of the woman's nose, her eyelids are shaded smoky blue, but the Soldier finds that he is no longer paying attention.

His thoughts are casting backward, to the images behind his eyes, to barely-recalled hints of sensation that cause his breathing to lift into an unfamiliar rhythm.

On the screen, the woman is making noises as she sucks, small pleased sounds. The Soldier thinks of Steve's lips, stretched tight around him. He thinks of Steve's hair, still dripping, smelling of their cheap shampoo.

There is an uncomfortable heat in the Soldier's abdomen, and an even more uncomfortable pressure, just beneath. His clothing has begun to chafe in a manner that he has not experienced before.

The Soldier stands to leave the theater five long minutes later, unable to rid himself of the sensation, uncertain of its cause.

The man in the window who took a buck seventy-seven in exchange for paper closes one eye at him and smiles. It is an expression that seems very certain. "Couldn't last, huh?" he says. "Right on. You're not the first one, man."

The Soldier tilts his head.

"That Ginger Lynn," says the man behind the window. "She is _choice_."

The Soldier suspects that Ginger Lynn is the woman from the screen, with her tousled blonde curls and busy lips.

"Yes," he says, because it seems like he should say something. The man is grinning at him, all teeth.

He waits for a reply, but none comes – and so the Soldier turns and walks away. He is aware, inexplicably, of the way the fabric bunches between his legs, and that it moves, ever so slightly, with each step he takes.


	8. Chapter 8

Author's Notes: Every time I think I'm wrapping this fic up, I end up writing a scene that I hadn't planned on. It has officially gotten away from me.

I am thinking probably two more chapters. We'll see how that goes. ^^

* * *

The Long Road Home – Chapter 8

* * *

The night is long, and the Soldier does not sleep.

He spends the hours walking, instead – passing through darkened streets punctuated with the periodic glow of streetlights.

It's quieter, now. He sees less people, has less chances to expect each one to be Steve. Before long, the strange, tight sensation brought on by the memories in the Elgin is gone. In its place, the Soldier feels cold, and distant, and slightly dizzy.

He turns corners at random, peers between buildings. His stomach pains him, shifts and makes soft noises, but the Soldier ignores it. He is busy goading the images behind his eyes – prodding them – trying to force more.

And they come.

Not always, but often enough.

The curve of a gutter brings back two dirt-streaked little boys, crouched by the roadside playing marbles.

The glint of a window reminds him of breaking glass, of slipping a shard through a man's throat and the hot, red gush of blood.

A record on display in the front of a store closed for the night carries with it the swell of music. He can hear the mellow strains of Moonlight Serenade, feel a nameless redhead tucked up against him as they sway on the dance floor.

A billboard for Coca Cola comes with the memory of calling Steve an idiot outside the malt shop on Henry Street. He'd been mouthing off to the creeps who wouldn't leave Mary O'Laney alone, three guys, all a head and shoulders taller. He'd got his fool nose broke, but the boy who wasn't the Soldier made sure the other guys went home with worse.

The memories come all night in this city he once knew, fragments of a person he used to be. He examines them, and he tucks them away inside, and he _keeps_ them.

By the time the dawn comes, the Soldier is – not well.

But better.

Better, he thinks, than he has been in a long time.

* * *

"Oh, no you don't," says the woman, and she turns away from the stove to swat at the hand of the boy the Soldier used to be. "You wait till dinner, young man. I won't have you filching food."

The woman's hair is dark and wavy, eyes pale like the sea on a cloudy day. She has worry lines by her mouth, and she's making them deeper now.

The boy who's not the Soldier has to stand on his tiptoes to kiss her on the cheek. "Sorry, ma," he says, and while she's distracted, he sticks one hand out behind him, gropes along the counter top, and lifts a split pea pancake from the handful that are already finished.

When he turns around, he knows Steve's seen. His best friend's eyes are huge, scandalized, and the boy who's not the Soldier takes him by the arm and leads him from the kitchen before he can rat.

"I want you boys to wash up proper this time," the woman is saying. She wipes her hands on her apron and looks them over, critical, before turning to flip the next pancake. It sticks in the pan; they're out of cook oil again. "Heaven knows where you even find so much dirt."

"It's the city, ma," says the boy who's not the Soldier. "It ain't clean anywhere."

"Isn't!" she calls after him, but he's already pulled Steve into the hallway.

The boy the Soldier used to be grins, sly and pleased. As soon as they're out of sight, he folds the pancake in two and passes half Steve's way.

"Aw, c'mon," he says, "Don't gimme that look. You were hungry, too." He bites into the pancake, discovers it plain but good, still warm. "Sides," he adds, mouth full, "What difference does a couple minutes make? I'll take it outta my share at dinner."

"It's not nice to lie to your ma," Steve tells him. But he considers the half-pancake between his thin fingers dubiously – takes a bite and chews.

"Hey, you never know," says the boy, unrepentant, and tucks the last of the pancake away. "Maybe I really _was_ sorry."

It's not Steve that answers him. It's a man's voice, gruff and unfamiliar. "Hey, buddy," it says, and the boy who's not the Soldier turns to see where it came from. "You can't sleep here."

He wakes on the ground, stiff and chill, clothes damp from the slush. The tip of a boot is prodding at his side.

The Soldier reacts without thinking.

He seizes that boot by the ankle and yanks, hears a shout, sees arms that flail for balance. The boot's owner goes down hard, and the Soldier hears the crack as his head connects with the pavement.

He does not stay to see if the man gets back up.

The Soldier shims between buildings, takes sharp corners, vaults fences that block his way. He is alert for the sounds of pursuit, feels his heartbeat, hard and fast, in his throat.

He remembers eyes with interest but no compassion watching him through glass. He remembers the first piercing grip of the ice. He pauses, gulping for breath – strains his ears for evidence of being followed.

Taking stock of the situation comes as second nature. It was in his training, perhaps, though he cannot remember being trained. Even with the roar of his own blood in his ears, he is able to analyze what surrounds him, consider where snipers might be hidden, whether the woman in that apartment on the third story might be armed.

The Soldier is observant, and what he observes calms him. He has not been followed.

The knowledge steals the tension from his shoulders, leaves him slumped against the dark brick of the wall beside him. He is exhausted from the exertion, though he ran for no more than fifteen minutes.

His flesh hand trembles, and he can't seem to make it stop. His legs are unsteady under him, and his head is swimming, and his stomach's so hollow it feels like he's been gutted.

Each by itself would be a liability. Together, they would present a mission compromise – and for the first time, he knows what's causing them.

He stands there in an alley of a city he remembers only in fragments, back to the filthy brick wall, and stares up through the rooftops at a hard, grey sky. "I'm an idiot," he tells it, almost conversationally.

Then he gropes into his pocket for what's left of his dough, counts four thirty-three. When he has the strength to return to the main streets, he scans for the man with the boot, the man who woke him.

He sees no one.

But there are shops with signs that read "Foot Long Hot Dogs!" and "Pizza by the Slice!" and "World's Greatest Hero!" and he knows, for the first time, why the smells make his mouth water when he passes them by.

The Soldier remembers sizzling sausages from a long-ago day in Coney Island. He remembers looking down from the top of the coaster, knowing that he and Steve had them for lunch. But "lunch" was only a word when that memory came, something with no meaning attached.

As he stares into the shop where a thick-set man stands by a grill lined with hot dogs, the meaning clicks into place.

He does not know what the soft, brown material surrounding the meat might be. He cannot name the small, green cubes, or the small white cubes, or the yellow and red lines of gloop.

But the Soldier sits at a plastic booth and eats his hot dog. He can't name the components, but they are good – are amazingly good. He has a vague notion that he should slow down, but finds that he can't. It's gone in four bites.

The Soldier sips at his water. He picks up one of the green cubes, fallen to the paper tray in his haste, and eats it, too. He thinks that he would like another hot dog very much.

He thinks that right up until his stomach cramps and he is suddenly, fiercely nauseous – right up until he retches and the man behind the counter directs him to a room with a white bowl set in the floor. Right up until the first lunch he remembers reappears in a hot rush of bile, and he sits there, shaking, with his head on white porcelain.


	9. Chapter 9

Author's Notes: I feel like every time I try to estimate how many chapters are left, I keep having to push it back.

So I give up. It will be a surprise. For me as much as for everyone reading. Talk about a story with a life of its own. \o/

* * *

The Long Road Home – Chapter 9

* * *

An hour after the Soldier vomits his hot dog, he is ready to try again.

Now that he knows what the hollow twist in his stomach is, it's intolerable that he not tend to it. The remembered warmth of a split pea pancake makes him shaky and impatient. His mouth is already wet with anticipation.

He is still awkward on his feet, still unreasonably tired with little exertion. The expectation of food crowds his thoughts, preoccupying him, and he forces himself to take a steadying breath and think. He does not have enough dough remaining to fail in a second attempt.

In the end, the Soldiers decides on a strategy involving little risk.

He selects a small carton of orange juice and a cookie from the shelf of a store marked 7-Eleven. He was able to consume these things before without becoming ill, the Soldier reasons. Perhaps they will serve him now, where the hot dog did not.

He parts with more of his dough, almost all, and then he sits on a curb and takes sips of the orange juice. He nibbles the edges of the cookie. The juice is dynamite on his tongue, the cookie crumbly and sweet. It takes him an hour to finish both, though it's hard not to rush. His flesh hand trembles with the effort of it.

When he finishes, though his stomach gurgles and shifts, he does not feel the violent nausea of before. Instead, there is a strange, torpid sense of satisfaction – his body's relief, the Soldier suspects, at having been provided with something needed after too long without.

He could stand without dizziness, now; of this, the Soldier is almost certain. But he does not move to do so right away. He remains seated, wants to keep this moment a little longer.

It's a good moment.

He watches as people drift by on the street. He finds it strange, how deeply his perceptions have changed in so short a time. He still marks movements that might be threats, still predicts the potential for those nearest him to do him harm. But now, he watches faces, too. He pays attention to blonde hair, to broad shoulders, to eyes the blue of remembered summer skies.

He is not certain when his priorities began to shift, but he knows they are no longer the same.

The Soldier sits on the curb, and his flesh fingers brush back and forth, absently, against the –

(– rough fabric beneath them. He's half-scared this is a dream, that the bare comfort of the bedroll's just his own dumb head making up what he wants to see again. Christ knows it's a dream he's _had_ before, and every time ends with him muttering his serial number through cracked lips when it's time to wake up again.

Words cut through his thoughts before he can get any further, and he's glad for the distraction. "Hey," says Steve's voice. "Coffee's on." The man who's not the Soldier looks up in time to see that his best friend's nudged open the tent flap and is peering in, backlit against the dim light of dawn. "You awake?"

He hasn't slept at all, but he's not about to say so. "Now I am," he says instead, "Gee, thanks, Stevie." But suddenly coffee sounds like the best thing he's ever heard.)

– concrete. He likes the feel of it, the little pits and unplanned irregularities. He likes sitting here, on the sidewalk in a city that once was his. A city that once was _Steve's_.

And that's what reminds him: he has something he still needs to do.

* * *

The Soldier finds the green lady above the water late in the afternoon.

He's walked a long way to reach her – and yet, when he first sets eyes upon her, he knows the trip was worth every step.

She stands larger than life and larger than memory, though he recalls being only a child at her feet. Her crown radiates out to frame a face with an elegant, stern sort of beauty. The sun's broken through the clouds for the first time in days to touch her with rays of orange and gold.

She glows. She holds her torch high, but she doesn't need it. She's bright enough just the way she is.

Beside the Soldier, a cluster of small children are being herded by an older woman in a pressed brown skirt, and he moves absently aside to let them pass. Almost reverently, he feels for the folded paper in his pocket. It's worn now, creased from being opened and closed and thumbed by the Soldier's hands, one metal and one flesh.

The green lady above the water looks just the way she does in the picture, and he holds the booklet aloft so that he can see them side by side.

"The Statue of Liberty," say the words on the paper, and the Soldier does not know what liberty means, but he likes the sound of it, thinks that it fits very well here with the sun streaming through the clouds and the ocean stretching away into the distance.

He stands there for a time, still and watchful. He recalls words, not in a clash of images as recollections so often come, but something subtler, knowledge tucked inside him that he hadn't been aware was present. "Give me your tired," say the words, "your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

The Soldier doesn't know where the words are from. He doesn't know where he heard them, or who said them, or what they mean.

But they linger in his mind long after he turns away. They fill him with a sense of belonging that he's never felt before, and he aches, and _aches_, and doesn't know why.


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Notes: Sorry this one took awhile. There were a few things I wanted to get to, and I'm still not sure how it came out. It feels a little like I ended up just checking off a list, but... I couldn't sit on it anymore.

Probably looking at two more chapters after this! Maybe three. We'll see how it goes.

The man's ripping Bucky off, by the way, because he thinks he can get away with it. Minimum wage in 1973 was $1.60 an hour.

* * *

The Long Road Home – Chapter 10

* * *

The Soldier spends the night on a rooftop high above the city streets. The sun has long gone down, but when he closes his eyes, he can still see the face of the green lady above the water, the graceful lines of her picked out in hues of gold.

It's not warm here; the Soldier can see his own breath, and he keeps his flesh arm tight to his chest, to preserve the heat. But a maintenance shed on one corner of the building has an overhang that keeps out the wind, and when he wedges himself into the crook of it, he's invisible from watching eyes.

Besides, it's –

(– high summer. Their skin is sticky with sweat, and the closeness of the tiny apartment is unbearable in the heat. He strips his shirt off, leaves it puddled on the floor the way Steve hates. "We're gonna be old men before you get out here," he calls, then climbs through the window onto the fire escape with a blanket tucked under one arm.

It's a straight shot up to the roof, and he's there in no time, laying out the blanket beneath the night sky. The city lights blot out most of the stars, but the moon's up, and the breeze is sweet on his skin after the feverish warmth of the day.

"You jerk," says Steve when he catches up, panting, five minutes later. "You left your crummy shirt laying around again." The man who's not the Soldier hears the rattle in his lungs, pays attention to how those breaths catch on the inhale, and he knows a very real flash of worry that one day those stairs're gonna do Stevie in if he doesn't take them slow.

But he only shrugs, cause he knows Steve hates to hear him fuss. He grins a wide, easy grin. "Too hot to keep it on," he says, like that's the problem. A second later, Steve's aiming a kick at his side, and he laughs and rolls away.)

—quieter here, without the rush of cars or the raucous voices of the men and women still staggering out of buildings with signs that promise "Ice cold beer" or "Live girls."

Up here, there's only the sound of his own breathing, a steady in and out. If he concentrates hard enough, if he turns away from the spot on his left where he thinks someone else ought to be, he can almost imagine that he hears Steve's, too, raspy and uneven.

The moon's out tonight, a long curve, bright even though the city lights swallow up the stars.

The Soldier stares up at it, and he wonders what the man he used to be would have said, on that rooftop long ago, after they'd settled in and quit their fooling around.

He lets his mind tumble through its thoughts, keeps his eyes from that spot on his left where there should have been another person.

"It's nice," he says, at last. "Ain't it?"

And that, the Soldier thinks, isn't right. Not quite.

But it's close, and the words feel good on his tongue, and they're true.

* * *

The coffee is thick and dark, the cup made of flimsy paper. The Soldier can feel its warmth in his flesh hand. It radiates out through his fingers, through his palm, and he adjusts his grip so that more of his skin makes contact.

"You want sugar?" asks the man behind the counter.

The Soldier looks at the small white packets the man extends his way. Then he glances into the black depths of the coffee like it might have answers.

The steam makes swirls and ribbons in the air –

(– and the man who's not the Soldier stares through it at Steve. He trails his finger along the bottom of the box in his hand, just to be sure.

There's a fine dusting of powder down there and a single sugar cube. He fishes it out, crumbles it in his hand. "Tell you what," he says, "We'll split it."

He sprinkles some of the sugar into his own coffee, more of it into Steve's – makes sure to keep his hand close to the rims of the mugs so that Steve doesn't see the discrepancy. He shakes the box absently, listens to the dregs slide against the cardboard. "Got some left for tomorrow, too," he says, and puts the remnants back onto the shelf.)

– and the Soldier feels his lips curl up at the secrets they hold.

"Yes," says the Soldier. And then, because it seems like a waste not to, when he'd wanted it so badly before – because there's no one here to tell him that he shouldn't want it now – he adds: "A whole bunch."

The man tosses four packets his way, and the Soldier tears them all open, emptying the contents into his drink. In exchange, he offers up the last of his dough, a silver handful that disappears behind the counter.

As he takes his first sip, stepping out into the chill of morning, he thinks that it was a fair exchange. The liquid scorches the roof of his mouth and spreads heat through his chest. It's strong and rich, somehow sweet and bitter, both at once. The Soldier remembers lying in a bedroll, thinking that coffee sounded like the best thing in the world. He takes another sip, and he knows why.

He walks without aim, coffee in hand, and his steps carry him through streets bright with morning. They carry him until the coffee is gone, and all that remains is a vague desire for more.

They bring him by men who are not Steve – he checks – and by more shops selling coffee he can't afford. They take him onto a wide road thick with cars, right past a voice that says, "Hey, buddy. Want to give me a hand here?"

The Soldier turns to look. A stout man with a receding hairline stands beside a truck. The back of the truck has been rolled open to reveal row after row of crates, stacked to the ceiling. The man has one of these in his arms now, and sweat stands on his forehead, runs down his temples. It's already beginning to stain his shirt.

As the Soldier watches, the crate begins to slip. The man's grip is insufficient; he bends to try and save it, but it lists sideways and tilts toward the ground.

The Soldier sets his empty cup down on the sidewalk.

It's a simple matter, to reach out with his left hand and steady the massive box. It's even easier to get the right hand around the other side, to widen his stance and lift. It comes readily – heavy, unwieldy, but not a challenge. The least taxing of his training was more strenuous than this.

The Soldier bends to set the crate down, smooth and easy, and the man claps a meaty hand on his shoulder.

"You're a life-saver," he says. "I mean that, mac, you're my new favorite person." But there's a calculating look in his eye – a slow sweep of his gaze as he looks the Soldier up and down, like a handler determining him fit for a task. His eyes trail down to the empty coffee cup on the curb, then back up to the Soldier's face.

"Hey," says the man, at length. "You want some work?"

* * *

The Soldier unloads the crates from the truck. They're heavy, and he's not as well as he was before. He knows now that it's because he hasn't eaten, but that doesn't make the tremors in his limbs easier to bear.

Still, his endurance training makes this seem like a – like a cakewalk. He doesn't know what the comparison means, or where it comes from, but his mind supplies it all the same. The Soldier doesn't examine it too closely, for fear he'll discourage it from happening again in the future.

He carries the crates up three flights of stairs, and he sets them on a concrete floor between empty rows of shelves. He makes twenty-seven trips, and by the time he's finished, he's shaky and dripping with sweat.

"Here you go," says the man, when the final crate is in place. He's holding out a piece of paper between two thick fingers, and the Soldier reaches to take it. "That's my brother's place," he adds. "Owns a flophouse downtown. You wanna stay on for the week until my stock's all in, he'll get you a bed. No charge."

The Soldier thinks about the roof and the alleyways. He thinks of the way the cold gets into his arm, how the metal burns with the chill. He opens the paper and looks at the writing on it: a number and a street name. When he glances up, some of his confusion must show on his face.

"No offense, buddy," says the man. "You look like you been sleeping rough, and I could use a pair of strong arms around."

When the Soldier does not immediately reply, the man shifts, and scowls, and says, "You drive a bargain all right. A buck fifty a day. What do you say?"

The Soldier thinks that a buck fifty a day will get him more coffee, and something to eat besides. He's barely started to nod when the man seizes his hand and shakes it up and down, vigorous.

"You got yourself a deal," he tells the Soldier.


End file.
